


The Elephant Jumper

by helloearthlings



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clothing, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jumpers, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 02:46:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9579020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloearthlings/pseuds/helloearthlings
Summary: "My mum and I had a tradition that whenever one of us was upset or had a bad day, we’d put on the Elephant Jumper and the other had to be nice to them all day and get them whatever they wanted. We would have to ask if we wanted to talk. If the answer was yes, we’d talk. If the answer was no, we’d have to leave them alone for the rest of the night. It was how we bonded. One of the best parts of my childhood.”“So if I put the jumper on,” Arthur said hesitantly after a moment, a smile growing on his face, “you’d have to be nice to me?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure how this idea came to me, but I think it's pretty unique. I haven't had a lot of time to write these past couple of weeks, but that's mainly because I actually got to do some fun things for a change! I don't have anything fun in the next few weeks, however, so hopefully I'll get another story out sometime soon. Hope you like!

The fact that Arthur had seen the Elephant Jumper in the first place had been a mistake, a random-chance scenario. He had been at Merlin’s flat, which wasn’t unusual, but the Elephant Jumper was safely stored somewhere in the depths of Merlin’s closet – not exactly a place Arthur frequented often, seeing as how their relationship had been six weeks old at the time.

Six weeks, Merlin thought, was far too soon to know about the Elephant Jumper.

Arthur, as was his way, steamrolled past both the random chance of finding an occasion to rummage through Merlin’s closet and what Merlin typically expected from relationships.

“Is your heat broken?” Arthur asked him, teeth chattering for what Merlin _knew_ was dramatic effect. It wasn’t even that cold in his flat, but a January in London in a flat that cost three times less than Arthur’s did was bound to have a bit of trouble. Arthur was just too posh for this flat, Merlin remembered thinking to himself, and maybe too posh for their relationship.

“No,” Merlin said, raising an eyebrow as he rummaged through his DVDs, trying to find something they’d both like to watch that evening. Arthur was a fan of the goriest action movies possible or the most romantic chick flicks known to man and absolutely nothing in between, both of which Merlin turned his nose up at. “Maybe you’d like Cloud Atlas?”

They both knew that Arthur wouldn’t understand half of Cloud Atlas, and Arthur’s slow blinking in Merlin’s direction did nothing to counter that fact.

“Merlin, it’s cold,” Arthur practically whined, leaning over the side of the couch so Merlin could see his pout better. Arthur knew Merlin would be weak in the face of his pout. “We can watch Cloud Atlas if I can borrow a sweater. Or six.”

Part of Merlin wanted to tell him that he could borrow whatever he liked, no deal necessary, but he could read Arthur well enough that he knew Arthur was well-aware of the fact. He had to have some elaborate reason to give into Merlin; he couldn’t just let Merlin win something. That was the one thing the two of them really had going for them – that being able to understand each other without talking thing. That was nice.

“I don’t know what in there will fit you, but be my guest,” Merlin waved a hand in the direction of his bedroom as he opened the case for Cloud Atlas.

A minute later, Arthur came bounding back out of the bedroom with a bright grin on this face, enthusiasm lacing his steps. Merlin was a bit taken aback; Arthur must have found something in there to make fun of him with, that’s the only reason he’d be smiling so much.

“I think this’ll fit me,” Arthur said in a sing-song voice, and it was then Merlin noticed the sweater in his hands as Arthur spread it open in between them. It was a gigantic cream, purple, and orange jumper at least five or six sizes too big for either of the two of them, buttons only slightly sewed on as if by an eight-year-old, its sleeves double the length of Arthur’s wingspan as he held it out.

“Oh,” Merlin said, smiling slightly at the old childhood relic, not sure how he felt about Arthur seeing it. “You found the Elephant Jumper.”

“It has a name?” Arthur asked, nearly delighted, tone just on the edge of mocking.

“My mum named it,” Merlin said a bit defensively before realizing he had nothing to be defensive about, and he really didn’t want Arthur making fun of such an important part of his childhood. Arthur was good for a lot of things, but sentimentality was hardly one of his strong suits. “Put it back, Arthur, let’s just watch the movie.”

The smile slid off of Arthur’s face, causing just the slightest twitch of guilt on Merlin’s part. “Fine then.”

“Arthur…” Merlin sighed before deciding that he really wasn’t in the mood for a fight over something so small, and he didn’t want to ruin the direction this relationship was heading. He _liked_ Arthur. He wasn’t entirely sure why sometimes, and he definitely wasn’t sure why Arthur liked him, but it had happened. They were dating, sort of. It was fun, and Merlin wanted to see it go somewhere. “It’s just something special between me and my mum, alright?”

“Oh,” Arthur said with a frown, his forehead creasing, an upset look on his face. Then Merlin realized the implications of what he had said; Arthur had never known his mother, didn’t _have_ any special memory about her.

“C’mere, I’ll tell you the story,” Merlin took a split-second to decide, putting off Cloud Atlas for a few minutes longer. Arthur’s face became a little brighter, but Merlin could tell he was wary as the two of them settled on the couch next to one another, knees touching, the jumper still in Arthur’s hands.

“I was bullied a lot in school when I was a kid,” Merlin said absentmindedly, trying to play it casually. “I wasn’t any good at football or anything, which of course is the hallmark of ten-year-old boys everywhere.”

“Of course,” Arthur said, hiding a smile when Merlin nudged his knee, reminding him that he was the definition of one of those football-obsessed boys.

“Since I didn’t want to play football, my mum wanted me to try all kinds of different activities,” Merlin continued. “Percussion was the one that eventually stuck, but for a long while she wanted me to try knitting.”

“So you made this?” Arthur’s lips twitched and Merlin knew he was resisting the urge to make fun. He couldn’t really blame Arthur for that; the jumper was absolutely hideous.

“I was absolutely rubbish at it,” Merlin said with a self-deprecating roll of his eyes. “But my mum likes to knit, so she tried her hardest to get me to love it. I…. did not, to say the least.” He laughed. “I actually only made exactly one of those sleeves. When I got upset about how badly I’d done, my mum decided to ‘fix’ it – she made another sleeve exactly the same length and knotted them together with that sorry excuse for a shirt. She called it the Elephant Jumper for obvious reasons.”

“That’s cute,” Arthur didn’t sound so teasing anymore, a bit of nostalgia seeping into his own tone. “Though why, as a twenty-seven-year-old man, do you still have it? Shouldn’t your mum have like – a keepsake collection for you where this should be?”

“I’m sure she does, but I wanted this,” Merlin explained, staring down at his hands now, not sure if and how he wanted to phrase how important this jumper was to him. “For the next however many years, it was a tradition of ours that whenever one of us was upset or had a bad day, we’d put on the Elephant Jumper and the other had to be nice to them all day and get them whatever they wanted. We would have to ask if we wanted to talk. If the answer was yes, we’d talk. If the answer was no, we’d have to leave them alone for the rest of the night. It was how we bonded, one of the best parts of my childhood.”

Arthur was quiet for a moment; though the two of them had surely had a few emotional moments in their fledgling relationship, neither of them was extremely comfortable talking about things that were _real_ to them. Arthur hated talking about his own childhood, especially his father, so Merlin wasn’t sure how he’d take this.

“So if I put the jumper on,” Arthur said hesitantly after a moment, a smile growing on his face, “you’d have to be nice to me?”

“That’s not how it works,” Merlin replied, but he was smiling too, happy that Arthur had _gotten_ it, at least to some extent. He tangled Arthur’s fingers with his own. “You have to have a bad day first. And I know for a fact that today you had slept in until eleven, had sex twice, and got take-out from your favorite restaurant.”

“But _if_ I had a bad day,” Arthur persisted, as was his way, “and I put the jumper on, you’d have to be nice to me? No questions asked?”

“You can’t take advantage of the Elephant Jumper like that,” Merlin complained, hiding a smile as Arthur pulled the jumper on over his head. He beamed at Merlin a bit ridiculously, looking absolutely ludicrous in purple and orange, but Merlin was rather certain that Arthur had never looked better to him. Heart thumping a bit harder than it had been a moment before, Merlin leaned in for a kiss.

Arthur lifted up an arm to hook around Merlin’s neck, the other pulling the sweater over both of their heads. Merlin laughed into Arthur’s mouth; the jumper more than contained both of them.

Arthur tipped them backward onto the couch, and they kissed messily for a few minutes before Merlin remembered, “Prat, you’re just trying to get out of watching Cloud Atlas!”

**ii.**

It was two weeks later when the Elephant Jumper made a reappearance; Merlin had been waiting for Arthur to follow through on his word and wear it the next time he was upset. But one Wednesday evening when the two of them were not supposed to see one another, there was a knock at Merlin’s door.

He left the kitchen where he’d been microwaving last weekend’s leftovers, and when he opened the door, Arthur stormed past him without a word, still in his suit from his workday.

“Arthur!” Merlin called after him as Arthur disappeared into his bedroom. He heard a series of bangs that were surely from his dresser drawer, and a moment later, Arthur reappeared in the doorway, the Elephant Jumper looking ridiculous overtop his pristine suit and tie.

“I’ve had,” Arthur declared, pout on his face very prominent, “a _terrible_ day.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Merlin laced his voice with just enough sweetness to be sarcastic, though he really was sorry. He thought he’d break Arthur’s pout by calling him sweetheart – which he’d never done before – but Arthur’s pout remained much the same. Merlin walked to him and put his arms around Arthur’s waist, pulling him into a hug. Arthur rested his head against Merlin’s shoulder. “Do you want to talk?”

“I had to meet with Cenred and Agravaine, both of whom hate me and want me to lose my job,” Arthur said into Merlin’s shoulder, “and _then_ I had lunch with my father, where he told me that if they hate me, it’s a show of my own failures and that he’s very disappointed in me, and have I met a nice girl that I want to knock up so that her children can carry on the Pendragon family name?”

Arthur’s petulant voice quickly turned shakier, his grip on Merlin tighter, and Merlin pressed a kiss into his hair.

“You should quit your job, work for someone who _isn’t_ your father,” Merlin voiced what had been his opinion since the moment he met Uther. “You’d be so much happier.”

“Don’t want advice,” Arthur pulled away from Merlin, his serious face quickly becoming his typical overdramatic one. “I want to wallow. I want ice cream and I want to watch Die Hard. And then Love Actually.”

“Your taste in movies is so weird,” Merlin kissed him. “You look very cute in the jumper, by the way. It matches your patent leather shoes.”

“I thought it might.”

**iii.**

Merlin thought the jumper might be forgotten after that; though cuddling with Arthur in the jumper through Die Hard and Love Actually had been very sweet, even when Arthur wanted his ice cream spoon-fed to him, he figured that the wonder of it would wear off quickly, just as in relationships.

But the jumper, and their relationship along with it, didn’t really _do_ that. Instead, Arthur wore the jumper twice more that month, and was less dramatic about it each time, instead just letting Merlin hold him tightly and run his fingers through his hair.

About a month later, a migraine threatening to overtake Merlin’s head, he realized that if Arthur could use _his_ jumper to get preferential treatment, Merlin might as well do the same.

“Don’t turn on the lights,” Merlin said drowsily as Arthur entered his bedroom, the jumper draped over his body as he buried his face in the bed’s comforter. “Head hurts.”

“You’re wearing the jumper,” Arthur said softly, and Merlin could feel the bed sag slightly as he sat down, a hand light on his hip.

“Migraine,” Merlin said quietly. “And a shitty day at work. Two of the other graphic designers got laid off. Might be cutting the program entirely.”

The bed shifted and Merlin was overcome with warmth as Arthur pulled Merlin into his chest. “Medicine?” He said softly and Merlin shook his head.

“Took some,” he said quietly. “Just want to lay down. Will you stay?”

“I have to,” Arthur said as if it were obvious. “You’re wearing the jumper.”

Merlin breathed into Arthur’s chest and wondered what would happen if Arthur left – if Merlin would ever be able to get over him. He didn’t think he would.

**iv.**

“And…and my father told me that if I was leaving the company, I may as well leave the family,” Arthur’s words spilled out in a stream, choking slightly as if it caused him pain just to utter them. Merlin pulled Arthur close to him, fingers light on the back of Arthur’s neck as they curled together on Merlin’s couch, the fabric of the Elephant Jumper soft against Merlin’s skin.

“Shh,” Merlin whispered as Arthur choked back a sob. “It’s okay, it’s okay – you don’t need him. You’ve _never_ needed him.”

“Not – not for my career,” Arthur said shakily after regaining more control of his voice. “I mean, Annis is already planning on hiring me. But what am I supposed to do without my father?”

“I don’t know,” Merlin pressed a kiss into Arthur’s hair, not saying what he truly felt – which was that Arthur was better off without Uther’s toxic influence in his life. “But you’re not alone. Your friends still love you. I still love you. Always, sweetheart, always.”

Arthur pulled away from him, face red and blotchy and tear-stained, which Arthur hardly ever was. It made Merlin want to keep a hold of him forever, never let him feel this way again. “I love you, too,” Arthur tried to smile, but he looked so, so _small_ as the Elephant Jumper swam around him, like a little boy who had just –

Just lost his father.

“Arthur,” Merlin said quietly after a moment, a hand gripping his knee. “Maybe – I mean – you could move in with me. If you wanted. And this isn’t just me trying to make you feel better, and I know it doesn’t fix things with your father, but – I want you to live here.”

Arthur gave him a smile that was just slightly watery as he kissed him. “Well, I’ll have much more convenient access to this jumper if your dresser is my dresser, too.”

Merlin laughed and kissed him again.

**v.**

The Elephant Jumper was soft against Merlin’s hands, but his hands were balled into fists, the fabric keeping his nails from biting into his skin. He was vaguely aware of that the bathroom sink was running above his head and that the lights in the bedroom were still on, but he couldn’t be bothered with tiny details like that.

He heard keys turning in the door, but it didn’t fully process, not even when he heard Arthur’s voice calling out to him. Merlin just stared at the tile floor, entirely numb to the world around him.

Arthur’s voice grew louder, however, and it was only when Merlin felt someone shaking him almost violently that he turned his head to see Arthur’s eyes, wide and terrified. “Merlin, please, answer me. What’s the matter?”

Merlin tried to open his mouth, but his words were lodged in a fiery thickness in his throat.

“Shit, do I need to call – call an ambulance? You’re not responding…please, baby, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

It took Merlin a moment to force the words, and reality set in as the words settled into the stagnant air. “Will’s dead.”

“What?” Arthur asked, eyes growing wider. “Will – your best friend Will? From Ealdor?”

“Car crash,” Merlin said, the words growing easier to speak, but the numbness around his body was still very much intact. “Two hours ago. Just outside city limits. Mum just called to tell me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Arthur breathed out, and Merlin was relatively sure that Arthur was holding his hand, but he didn’t look down to check. “Merlin – let’s get out of the bathroom, yeah? We can – we can drive to Ealdor tonight, or just…just lay down. Or sit down. Okay? Is that okay?”

“Will and I used to play in the bathroom in my mum’s flat,” Merlin spoke without inflection or direction. “It was the only room with a lock, the only place we could be alone. We’d play with racecars in the bathtub. Once we cracked the mirror and we had cuts all over our hands. My mum freaked out, told us she never wanted us to play in there again. That it was too dangerous.”

Merlin didn’t realize he was crying until he felt Arthur’s hands on his face, wiping away his tears. He looked over at Arthur, whose eyes were bright and focused. “It’s not fair. Why is he gone?”

“I don’t know, baby,” Arthur whispered, burying his face in Merlin’s hair as Merlin suppressed a sob. “I don’t know.”

**vi.**

“Fuck, Arthur, I just wish you would –”

“Wish I would what? Never speak to my father again?”

“Of course not! I’m just saying that _maybe_ you should be a _careful_ when you see him, because he’s screwed you over so many times before!”

“Oh, like when I quit my job? That was my own damn fault he was angry with me. Or maybe it was yours. I never even thought about quitting my job until I met you.”

“Well, I’m very sorry for screwing up your perfect life!” Merlin shook in anger, or maybe frustration; he didn’t know. “I didn’t realize that I was such a burden to you!”

“You’re not –” Arthur’s face screwed up in what was maybe anger, maybe frustration, probably both. “I just want to have a fucking family again, Merlin! Is that too much to ask for? My father is all I have!”

Merlin swore. “Christ, Arthur. You’d think after three years together you _might_ consider me a part of your family? I _love_ you. I want to stay with you for the rest of my life. And I’m not saying you should never talk to your father again! Just don’t expect him to change and suddenly become a wonderful, doting father, because he treats you _terribly!”_

Arthur laughed humorlessly, bitterness seeping through his tone. “You think he fucked me up. I know you do. You think he made me a worse person by raising me the way he did.”

“I –” Merlin’s jaw twitched. “I’m just saying that I don’t think he’s the most loving man in the world. And you should be careful around him. I’m getting out of here, Arthur. I don’t like dealing with you when you get like this. Call me if you’re ready to have an adult conversation for a change instead of just shouting and overreacting. But don’t call until you’ve calmed the fuck down.”

Merlin banged out of the flat without bothering to grab anything more than his coat and his keys. He didn’t want to deal with Arthur for a second longer than he had to. When Arthur got in one of his moods where a simple comment was enough to set him off, there was no stopping him from blowing a gasket. It didn’t matter anyway; Lance’s flat was close by, he had a couch and clothes that would at least somewhat fit Merlin for tomorrow.

Anger boiled under Merlin’s skin as he clomped down the staircase, a dozen other points he could have made to Arthur running through his head, which wasn’t helping him calm down. Finally, he got to the lobby of the building and hurried toward the door.

“Merlin! Wait!” A voice cut him off before he could reach the outside of the building. Merlin turned to find Arthur standing outside of the elevator, hurrying toward him, the Elephant Jumper wrapped around his chest, making him look small and sad, his eyes wide as he reached Merlin and batted his hand away from the door.

“How’d you –?”

“You always take the stairs,” Arthur explained, but his eyes were bright and nearly apologetic – Arthur really didn’t do apologies after debacles like this. He just slowly let things return to normal without talking about it. “Merlin, I’ve had…a really bad day.”

“Me too,” Merlin pointed out, but his resolve to be angry was slowly breaking down.

“My boyfriend’s really angry with me,” Arthur said, a pout prominent on his face. “And…and I was mean to him. But only because he spoiled my plan.”

“Plan?” Merlin blinked.

“I…” Arthur’s face turned red. “I was gonna propose to him tonight. But then we started fighting. And now I feel so terrible about it that I ran after him to stop him from leaving. Which makes it much more like Love Actually.”

“I suppose it does,” Merlin said, though he really stopped processing too many words after ‘propose’, his heart beating too loudly as his anger drained away entirely. “You do love that movie.”

“I love that movie,” Arthur agreed fervently. “I…so as long as he’s not too mad at me, I want him to come back upstairs because I put on this stupid jumper but forgot the ring box.”

“I like the jumper better anyway,” Merlin’s voice broke just slightly as he pulled Arthur into a tight hug, the Elephant Jumper’s fabric soft in his hands.


End file.
